The Dance of Death

Thirteen

By the following day, the wind had dropped and the rain clouds blown away to the west, revealing a morning of chilly sunlight. While we were all still at breakfast, the master of The Sea Nymph sent word that he would be sailing on the afternoon tide, adding a polite request for all passengers to be aboard by noon.

I think we were all relieved not to be spending more hours in one another’s company within the narrow confines of the inn. The hostility between Robert Armiger and his brother-in-law was no better for a night’s sleep and sober reflection and although Oliver Cook had apologized handsomely for knocking the older man down, pleading a hasty temper and having, from boyhood, always been too handy with his fists, Robert’s bruised and swollen jaw prevented him from accepting the apology. Will Lackpenny, too, regarded the cook with resentment from a blackened eye. He was offered no expression of regret, nor could he fail to notice the grin of satisfaction that split Oliver’s features whenever he looked at him. In consequence, breakfast had been a meal of sullen faces and strained conversation until the master of The Sea Nymph’s message was relayed to us by the landlord.

The succeeding bustle to pack our saddlebags, to get them carried aboard ship, to settle our accounts and to make all necessary arrangements for the stabling and feeding of the horses until our return gave us each something to occupy our minds and keep us busy.

‘It will be very cold mid-Channel,’ Eloise warned, ‘so wrap up warmly. And remember to put your hat on the right way round.’

This had been one of her running jokes ever since that first morning when I had accidentally put it on back to front. At first, it had irritated me, but it had now ceased to do so to the extent that I jogged her memory whenever she forgot to mention it, so I grinned in acknowledgement. She was standing very close to me, smiling up into my face, her lips slightly parted, her eyes half closed in amusement. I felt my breath catch in my throat and, almost involuntarily, had encircled her with one arm when one of the inn servants rapped on our bedchamber door and asked for the baggage he was to convey to the quayside.

‘A close call, Roger,’ she mocked, following the servant out of the room.

We were the last down and found the other six already aboard The Sea Nymph and waiting impatiently for our arrival. But even when we and our saddlebags were safely conveyed across the gangplank, and though the sails were set and the tide on the turn, there was a delay.

‘What are you waiting for, master?’ Robert Armiger demanded angrily. He had a hand clamped to his swollen jaw, which was obviously causing him some trouble. ‘What’s keeping us?’

For answer, the master went forward to greet a middle-aged man whom I had seen in conversation with the landlord in the courtyard of the inn just before Eloise and I came away.

‘Monsewer Harcourt,’ he said, and when the man smiled familiarly, added, ‘welcome aboard.’ He signalled to one of the hands to fetch the newcomer’s baggage, still standing on the quay. ‘This French gen’leman’s sailing with us,’ he informed the rest of us, before striding away to resume the command of his ship.

‘Raoul d’Harcourt,’ the Frenchman said, introducing himself to the rest of us, but offering no further information.

Attempts by William Lackpenny to draw him out encountering only the briefest of responses, the rest of us eventually lost interest and left the monsieur to his own devices. As we had now left the shelter of the harbour and were embarking on the choppier waters of the Channel, I went below with the two women.

It’s no good expecting me to write in detail about the voyage. I know as much about ships as I do about horses: that they are useful for getting you from place to place, but very little else.

It was a rough crossing, I can tell you that — far rougher than we had been led to expect by the ship’s master when we left Dover. A nasty squall blew up when we were halfway across. Black clouds appeared on the horizon, trailing rain and sleet in their wake, and accompanied by the bleak, ominous light that presages an easterly wind.

I had been up on deck for a while by then, with the other three men I thought of as belonging to our party. I had no idea where John Bradshaw and Philip were sheltering, and the Frenchman had disappeared. When the weather suddenly worsened, it was borne in upon me that it was going to be a game of bravado, a competition as to who could prove himself a man by remaining on deck and impressing us all later with stories about the size of the waves and the gusts of wind that had nearly blown him off his feet. Will Lackpenny was particularly anxious to prove himself a better man than the rest of us. (He was, of course, hoping to command Jane Armiger’s respect and admiration.) As for Robert Armiger and Oliver Cook, their natural antipathy forced them into contention. They were behaving like children, although the latter was better equipped to play the game without coming to serious harm.

I wasn’t such a fool. I retreated below deck again to join the two women in the master’s cabin, which had been put at their disposal. I tried to persuade Robert Armiger to join me, but he refused, with the assurance that he found the fresh air bracing after being cooped up in the inn at Dover. Eloise was at first inclined to taunt me with cowardice, but the continued lurching and plunging of the ship soon changed her mind and even made Jane Armiger begin to fear for her husband’s safety.

Somewhere around mid-afternoon, he descended to the cabin, looking distinctly green about the gills and cursing Will Lackpenny for a pig-headed fool. ‘He’s letting Oliver goad him into braving the elements and into proving that he’s as good a man as that behemoth. He’s an idiot. I told him so. “You’ll be forced to take shelter below in the end,” I said.’

He had just finished speaking when the cabin door opened on a blast of wind and rain to admit my smart young gent looking decidedly the worse for wear. Even his thick cloak was drenched, while the blue feather in his hat hung down sadly, no longer bravely upstanding but bedraggled past recognition, tickling his cheek. Both ladies exclaimed in horror, urging him to sit down while they chafed his hands (one each) and scolded his imprudence in remaining aloft.

‘Pooh! I’ve crossed in worse gales than this,’ he boasted. ‘This little squall will soon blow itself out, believe you me!’

However, he was in no hurry to quit the shelter of the cabin again, and remained until well after an improvement in the weather had sent Robert Armiger up on deck to see if land were anywhere in sight. My and Eloise’s presence prevented anything more than a tender look or two passing between the lovers, and frustration finally decided Will Lackpenny to follow suit.

I was just debating whether or not to go, as well, when the cry of ‘Land ahoy!’ made the decision for me. Both Eloise and I hurried up on deck, she because she was feeling a little sick after hours of confinement in the stuffy cabin, I because this was my first view of Calais and I was anxious to get a glimpse of so famous a town.

It was by now late afternoon, almost twilight, but the weather had moderated and visibility improved. I could see the two great fortresses of Hammes and Guisnes, which protect Calais, quite plainly through the gathering gloom, and as The Sea Nymph edged its slow way into the splendid harbour, I was amazed at the quantity of shipping anchored there.

‘It’s one of the busiest times of the year,’ Eloise told me, slipping one small hand into the crook of my elbow and looking every inch the doting wife. ‘All the shipments of wool for Burgundy and Flanders come through Calais. It’s our most important staple town and the only English port where we keep a standing garrison.’ She tilted her head and looked up at me. ‘Can you smell that smell?’

‘Fish? Salt water, do you mean?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘There’s nothing odd in that. Every port I’ve ever visited has the same stench.’

‘No! The smell of money,’ she answered, laughing. ‘Calais is the home of very many very rich men. You’ll see some magnificent houses belonging to the owners of those vast warehouses you can just make out lining the quayside, where the wool is stored.’ She gave an excited little laugh. ‘There isn’t much you can’t get in Calais. Horses, hawks. . whores! All of them every bit as good as you’ll find in London, and a dozen times better, I’m sure, than in Bristol. And if you want dancing lessons, singing lessons or to learn how to play a musical instrument, there’s no problem.’

I glanced down at her, refusing to be impressed. ‘I don’t think I’ve time to learn a musical instrument,’ I muttered sourly. ‘I hope the inhabitants all speak English.’

‘Nearly all of them.’ She withdrew her hand from my arm, knowing the game I was playing. ‘Don’t worry! You won’t hear much French until after we’ve crossed the Calais Pale.’ Then she marched off to join the Armigers, who, like us, were watching The Sea Nymph ease her way into an empty berth between two great ships of war, riding at anchor, high and proud, in the water.

It must have been the better part of an hour later by the time we had all disembarked and were standing on the quayside, waiting for our baggage to be brought ashore. It was dark by now, the October days growing ever shorter as November approached and was very nearly upon us, but the myriad lights from the houses and ships made it seem almost as bright as day.

John Bradshaw, muffled in his good frieze cloak, tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Sir,’ he said respectfully, ‘with your permission, Philip and I will go on into the town and bespeak lodgings. Also, we need to search out a good livery stable to hire horses for tomorrow. If you and the mistress will be good enough to stay here until our return, I hope not to keep you waiting too long.’

As I nodded and he turned away, Robert Armiger raised a restraining arm. ‘Master Chapman,’ he said, ‘if your man could find an inn able to accommodate Mistress Armiger and myself as well, I’d be obliged.’

‘Of course,’ I answered stiffly, and looked at John.

He nodded curtly, probably thinking the same as I was: that it would be safer to keep everyone under our eye until the time arrived for a natural parting of the ways, or it became necessary to give our companions the slip.

‘Oh, don’t forget Master Lackpenny and Oliver!’ Jane Armiger exclaimed. ‘They also need lodgings.’ She smiled timidly at John and darted an uneasy glance at her husband, afraid she might have said too much.

‘Yes, indeed!’ confirmed my smart young gent, whose appearance had not yet recovered from the battering it had suffered. (The blue feather still hung forlornly down over one shoulder.) ‘I’d be very grateful, Master Chapman, if your fellow there could do the same for me.’

‘Do your best, John,’ I instructed, trying to sound as if I was used to giving orders, rather than receiving them.

‘Sir!’ He called to Philip and the two of them disappeared through a gap between the houses, an alleyway, presumably, leading further into the heart of the town.

I turned back to discover that the baggage had by now been dumped on the quayside by a couple of hefty sailors, and that Robert Armiger was testily putting some question to his wife.

‘Well, where is he?’ he was demanding in a low, angry voice. ‘The rest of us are here. The baggage is here. So where, in Jesu’s name, is your brother?’

Until that moment, I hadn’t realized that Goliath wasn’t amongst us, and neither, I think, had the others. A strange absence, considering his height and bulk, to overlook, but so it was.

‘And where’s the Frenchman?’ I asked, glancing around me. ‘Master Harcourt.’ I gave the name its full brutal, aspirated pronunciation, just to prove, in my aggressive English way when dealing with foreigners, that I was starting as I meant to go on.

‘Monsieur d’Harcourt,’ Eloise reproved me, as Gallic as I was being Anglo-Saxon, ‘took his baggage roll and left while you were speaking to John. Presumably he is well acquainted with Calais and can find his own lodgings without our help.’

‘Never mind the Frenchie,’ Robert Armiger interrupted angrily. ‘Where’s Oliver? That’s what I want to know. Why hasn’t he come ashore like the rest of us?’

I caught a little of his uneasiness. To the best of my knowledge, Oliver Cook had stayed up on deck throughout the voyage. Why he should now have gone below was a mystery. And why he was remaining there, when he must be aware that The Sea Nymph had docked, was an even greater one.

I called to one of the sailors and asked him to fetch the ship’s master. When he came, Robert Armiger explained the situation. ‘His baggage is here,’ he added, kicking a somewhat worn and scuffed leather saddlebag with one foot.

‘I’ll have the vessel searched for him, Your Honour,’ the master said, irritation mingling with a note of concern that he could not quite keep out of his voice. ‘You’re certain he hasn’t come ashore already and wandered off on his own?’

‘No,’ Jane Armiger answered firmly. ‘I’ve been watching for him ever since I got ashore. He. . Well, he isn’t exactly the sort of person you can miss.’

‘I suppose he couldn’t have left the ship before the rest of us?’ Eloise suggested.

Jane shook her head. ‘We were all standing in a group as The Sea Nymph was berthed. I even noticed Monsieur Harcourt. But I don’t remember seeing Oliver.’ Her little, flower-like face puckered anxiously and she wrung her delicate hands. (I recall thinking that I’d never actually seen anyone do that before.) ‘Wherever can he be?’

William Lackpenny took a hasty step forward, as though about to comfort her, before recollecting that it was not his place to do so. Instead, he looked reproachfully at Robert Armiger.

That worthy, however, was unmoved by his wife’s distress. ‘The fellow’s a damned nuisance,’ he burst out. ‘What does he mean by keeping us all waiting like this? I warn you, Jane, I’m not prepared to hang around here until he’s ready to appear! As soon as Master Chapman’s man returns, we’re off to whatever lodgings he’s found for us.’

It struck me that his bluster hid a growing anxiety.

‘Your brother-in-law must be still aboard somewhere,’ I said, trying to sound positive. ‘Maybe he went below deck towards the end of the journey and fell asleep. Facing into all that wind and rain crossing the Channel, as he insisted on doing, must have tired him out in the end.’

‘The conceited fool has the constitution of an ox,’ Robert Armiger snorted. ‘This is probably his stupid idea of a joke, just to get us worried.’ He turned furiously on his wife. ‘Your brother is an ignorant dolt!’ he spat at her. ‘This is your doing, I suppose, persuading him to ask for leave of absence and come with us to France. If I’d only known what you were plotting, my girl, we’d have stayed at home. You’re as big an idiot as he is!’

Jane burst into tears. Eloise, glaring at Robert Armiger, went forward and put a consoling arm about the other woman’s shoulders, forestalling William Lackpenny’s attempt to do the same.

‘You speak out of turn, sir!’ she said coldly. ‘Can’t you see that your wife is frightened?’ She went on, turning to me and putting into words what none of us had so far dared to mention, ‘Is it possible, do you think, Roger, that Master Cook might have fallen overboard?’

I frowned at her, but this bald statement of her worst fears seemed rather to calm Mistress Armiger than otherwise.

‘That’s what I’ve been wondering,’ she murmured tremulously.

Before anyone else could say anything, The Sea Nymph’s master returned to report that no trace of the missing passenger could be found. ‘We’ve searched the ship from prow to stern, sirs. We’ve looked in every place where even the smallest man might stow away, but without result. The gentleman’s not on board, and you can take my word for that.’ He chewed a broken fingernail. ‘You’re sure he didn’t precede you off the ship?’

‘No,’ Jane assured him, her voice breaking. ‘He didn’t. He. . he’s fallen overboard and drowned. Oh, Oliver! Oliver!’

She seemed likely to have hysterics. Her husband pushed Eloise unceremoniously aside and shook his wife violently. ‘Be quiet, you silly child! Be quiet! Of course he hasn’t fallen overboard, not a great lump like him. It would take more than a few squalls of wind and rain to dislodge that enormous brute. The master’s right. He slipped ashore ahead of us and is now wandering around the town. Probably looking for the nearest whorehouse, if I know him. Ah!’ He glanced at someone over my shoulder. ‘Here’s your man back, Master Chapman. Now, my good fellow, have you seen my brother-in-law Master Cook anywhere in the town?’

I turned round to encounter John Bradshaw’s look of enquiry. Briefly, I explained the situation and our fears for Oliver Cook’s safety. I saw at once, by his sudden unguarded expression, that he put the worst interpretation on events, but he had his features under control in a moment, and addressed Jane Armiger with his customary placid common sense.

‘No, we haven’t seen him, mistress — ’ he indicated Philip’s shadowy figure behind him — ‘but we’ve had too much to do, arranging stables and lodgings, to take note of everyone who’s passed us. The town’s that full of people! I don’t doubt your husband’s right and your brother disembarked before the rest of us. He was on deck for the whole of the voyage. I saw him several times whenever I ventured out of the lee of the fo’c’sle, where Philip and I were sheltering. And the light’s bad. You might well have missed noticing him.’

Nobody could have missed noticing the cook, and I could tell by the quizzical look in John’s eyes that he knew it as well as anyone. But his words seemed to have a calming effect on Jane Armiger and her sobs diminished. Her husband released her, and Eloise again took over as comforter, wrapping Jane’s cloak more warmly about her and murmuring gently in her ear.

‘I think it would be as well,’ she said, addressing the rest of us, ‘if we went at once to the inn John has found. Food and drink and rest will make us all feel better, and maybe, in an hour or so, we might have some news of Master Cook. John, will you lead the way? And afterwards, when you’ve seen us settled, perhaps you and Philip will come back for the baggage.’

The Blue Cat was a small inn in a side street not too far from the quay, wedged between an apothecary’s shop and a baker’s — not as grand as those we had stayed in previously on this journey, but clean and comfortable for all that. Three bedchambers had been put at our disposal — one for the Armigers, another for Eloise and myself, and a third, not much bigger than a cupboard, for Oliver and Will — and I discovered later that they comprised the Blue Cat’s total sleeping accommodation. When I asked John how this miracle had been worked in a town already teeming with visitors, he grinned and said it was better I didn’t know, which left me to draw the conclusion that a goodly sum of money had changed hands. (I feared Timothy Plummer was likely to have an apoplexy when we finally returned to London, to discover how much of his money had been spent. Or squandered, as he would no doubt call it.)

Eloise and I were favoured with the largest of the three chambers (again, John’s doing), and once we were alone, we were able to express our growing concern as to Oliver Cook’s probable fate.

‘He’s gone overboard,’ she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. ‘I feel it in my bones.’

‘I’m very much afraid you’re right,’ I agreed gloomily, opening the window shutters a little, in spite of the weather, and staring down into the bustling street below.

It was by now quite dark, but the busy scene was illumined with wall torches, flaring and tearing sideways in the wind, the scent of the pitch-soaked rags adding to the other smells of sea water, fish, rotting refuse and unwashed bodies that make up the stench of most big ports. It reminded me of Bristol. I felt a nostalgic pang for home, and it was with an effort that I made myself attend to what Eloise was saying.

‘Was it an accident, or was it. .?’ She raised her eyes to mine, willing me to finish the sentence for her.

‘Or was it murder?’ I obliged.

‘Yes.’

I thought about it, and was still thinking about it when one of the inn servants brought up our saddlebags and deposited them, with a sigh and a thump, on the bedchamber floor. I took the hint and handed him a coin, which he eyed with suspicion and tested between his teeth, before finally taking himself off again. Eloise gave a little giggle, but sobered almost immediately.

‘Well?’ she asked.

‘But if it’s murder,’ I answered, ‘what’s the motive? That’s the problem.’

She thought about this for a moment or two, nibbling an elegant forefinger. ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘don’t let us forget that Oliver quarrelled violently with Master Armiger, nor that we believe him to have been responsible for Master Lackpenny’s black eye. I never for one second credited the story that Will walked into a door. And then again, Jane herself must have realized that Oliver was going to be a stricter chaperone than her husband, who’s far too set up in his own conceit to conceive of a rival to his manly charms. She and Will would find it difficult, with Master Cook around, to carry on their secret meetings.’

I shook my head over this last suggestion. ‘No. Not Jane Armiger. If Oliver Cook was murdered — and I’m not entirely convinced of that — he was thrown overboard. Taken unawares and heaved over the side. But only consider his size and weight. His sister couldn’t possibly have done it. Besides,’ I added, a thought striking me, ‘wasn’t she below with you all the time she was aboard?’

‘I think you’re right.’ Eloise began to loosen the silver net that bound her still boyishly short hair. ‘Now you mention it, I don’t recall her going up on deck on her own.’

‘No, but Robert Armiger joined you both in the cabin a short while after I did. Don’t you remember him cursing Lackpenny for a fool for trying to prove himself as good a man as his brother-in-law?’

She ran her fingers through her fair curls and nodded. ‘Will came in shortly afterwards. He was soaked to the skin.’

‘That proves nothing. The weather had worsened considerably by then.’

‘But it means he was alone for a while with Master Cook.’

‘But so was Robert Armiger,’ I pointed out. ‘He went up on deck before the rest of us to see if land was anywhere in sight. He could have tipped Oliver over the side then. And if it’s a choice between him and Will Lackpenny, I’d choose him. He’s by far the stronger of the two. Moreover, if it wasn’t him, surely he’d have noticed that Oliver wasn’t where he’d left him.’

Eloise shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. Or if he did, he could just have presumed that Master Cook had taken himself off to another part of the deck. And if we’re assuming murder, what about the mysterious Frenchman, Monsieur d’Harcourt?’

I grunted. ‘I keep forgetting him. On the other hand, if we start casting him in the role of murderer, what does it make him? Certainly not the innocent traveller taking his way home aboard an English ship. No, no! Forget Master Harcourt. It complicates matters beyond all reason. We’re not even sure that Oliver’s disappearance is murder. It could easily have been an accident — an extra large wave, a buffet of wind that even he couldn’t withstand — or he might not be dead at all. Perhaps he did disembark before the rest of us without being noticed and will turn up presently, asking in that lovable way of his why, in Beelzebub’s name, we’re all making such a bloody fuss, and curse us for a pack of womanish fools.’

That made Eloise laugh, and sliding off the bed, she began to unpack her saddlebags prior to pulling the bed-curtains and performing her vanishing trick behind them. At the same time, one of the inn servants came upstairs with a ewer of hot water. The familiar evening ritual of the past five days had begun. I experienced an uneasy qualm: it occurred to me that, except in one vital respect, we were falling into the habits and routine of a married couple. With a great effort, I conjured up the faces of Adela and the children, but realized that it was becoming daily more difficult, that, very often, Eloise’s features would superimpose themselves on my wife’s, while the children’s were growing increasingly hazy.

The sooner this adventure were played out and finished, the better.

Unfortunately, it seemed to be getting ever more confusing and, probably, dangerous.